Number 6 - Fall 2024

Table of contents

Essays

Thematic Articles: On Nature

Translations

The sixth issue of Conspiratio is devoted to “Nature.” For all its complexity, nature remains a potent keyword to unlock many contested areas of contemporary life. The science of climate change records man’s degradation of nature. The worldwide pursuit of a green economy is justified by the necessity to mitigate those damages. The acrimonious disputes over gender, sex, and identity pivot on the question of human nature. The dream of a post-human future is predicated on replacing the natural by the technical.

Editorial note

Marianne and Reimer Gronemeyer knew Illich well. With a group of close friends, they run the Stiftung Convivial in Wiesbaden, Germany. It houses the best Illich archive in the world. The collection is exhaustive, chronologically arranged, and readily available to visitors. The materials are distributed across filing cabinets and bookshelves in one large room that looks out through ample windows on a mostly quiet city street. In late June this year, Marianne and her friends hosted a three-day symposium on the future of the Thinking After Ivan Illich project, of which this periodical is one element. About twenty-five persons ranging in age from the mid-twenties to the mid-eighties, from New Zealand to Argentina, passed the hours in intense discussion and, occasionally, spirited debate. It is difficult to summarize the range of subjects discussed, usually in English but with enough German, Italian, French, and even the odd Swedish phrase to demand that each strain towards understanding the other. Sometimes slight changes indicate big shifts of direction —one fruit of the discussions is that the project is now named Thinking with Ivan Illich. Continue reading >

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